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CHAPTER ELEVEN

TUCKER

“Goalie head bumps! All of you!” Standing back, I watched as the kids all formed a line to knock their helmets into Cadence’s. She had a shit-eating grin behind her mask, her little body rocking back and forth with each tap on her bucket.

It was our fourth loss of the season, but this time, we lost in OT by a single point. Sure, the score ended up 0-1, but hey, we still kept them out of our net until the very end. That definitely called for ice cream.

“That was rough, man,” Jonah said, leaning against me. “You think there’s going to be crying? I cannot do kids crying today?”

“There’s always going to be at least three kids crying,” I reminded him. I’d been doing the peewee thing longer than him.

“So then you’ll be used to it when you come coach us,” he said with a grin.

I elbowed him in the gut, making him lose his breath. “Do I really have to sit before your fucking council?”

Jonah shrugged. “Obviously, there are proper channels. You’ll get an email from Kev tonight”—he was the team’s owner—“with the link to submit your resume, but I highly doubt they’re going to turn down a visually impaired, former NHL player.”

“Prospect,” I corrected.

“Tomato-tomah-to. You were signed,” he reminded me, like I needed reminding of my single moment of glory before it all crashed down around me. “Everyone loves you. Losing Reid sucks, and gaining you will take the sting out of it, but we have to put it up for a vote.”

I grimaced as I watched the last kid file off the ice. Amelia—my second assistant coach—was going to handle post-game since I was kind of a mess, and she could immediately tell from the look on my face that I was going to be next to useless once the game was over.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have Ford do it? He’s better at that professional shit than I am. I mean, I was kicked out of the Paralympics.”

“So was he, ya fuckin’ punk,” Jonah reminded me. “And so was Boden, who is practically a Mormon missionary.”

I almost pissed myself laughing at the thought of Boden’s face if Jonah said that where he could hear him. “I will give you twenty bucks to call him that next time you come over.”

Jonah grinned. “Done. But seriously, it’s you, okay? I love Ford. He’s like my brother from another planet, but he’s not blind. He doesn’t get it.”

I wanted to argue, but Jonah was right. It was the whole reason Boden was ready to risk his Paralympic comeback to get this new guy fired. Though there was something about the new coach that I couldn’t put my finger on.

We’d only had a couple of practices with him, but he seemed to anticipate what we needed, what we should do, and what wasn’t going to work like it was a sixth sense. Boden’s assessment of him seemed to be way off. And his anger was a bit intense, even for him.

Which meant we might have to have a chat, and he was not going to like that.

But that was a future Tucker problem.

“When is Reid leaving?”

Jonah hummed in thought, his brows furrowed. “I wanna say like…August? September?”

That could be doable, and frankly, it was next to impossible to say no. The Legends were a professional team—as professional as disabled teams were allowed to be. But they were sponsored and had funding. Their coaches got paid in more than chewing gum, peanuts, and a wage barely enough to deduct taxes out of.

It was a real, proper job. I’d have to wear a suit. And travel.

All those grown-up things I’d been avoiding in my big, grown-up life. Though technically, I had gotten married, so that counted…didn’t it?

“Why are you quiet?” Jonah demanded.

“Lotta shit going on.” Don’t ask. Please don’t ask .

“The hottie with the body at lunch today?” he asked, wagging his brows.

I shoved him, then began to head toward the office, and he was quick at my heels, grabbing my elbow so I couldn’t get too far. “Can we not talk about Amedeo right now?”

In all honesty, I was still reeling from our moment in the bathroom. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see the stunned look on his face. I could still feel the echo of his breath, and his lips against mine, and the way he’d grabbed me and held me like he was terrified to let go.

Clearly, something had been going on with him that day, but I didn’t think that was why he’d kissed me the way he did. It was certainly not why I’d kissed him.

I wanted him. I couldn’t get him out of my head, and maybe it had everything to do with the whole wedding thing. Or maybe it was me being a dipshit and falling for a guy who lived on the literal other side of the country. Because that was not doable. I was not moving to California.

“He has a great name, by the way. And a nice voice,” Jonah said, letting me go as I opened the office door.

He walked in past me, waving his hand around gently until he found his chair, and then he sank down and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles.

“Yeah.” I stepped over him and dropped into my chair, which made that soft, leather-fart sound. The ends of my legs were throbbing now, and I couldn’t wait to take them off. I needed a leg break for at least a week, but I wasn’t ready to do that yet. Not with Amedeo here.

I wanted Amedeo to have time to get comfortable around me, and if that meant a little discomfort for a bit, I could handle it.

“Is that all I’m going to get? Yeah?”

“What do you want from me? This isn’t…” I stopped. I couldn’t tell him it wasn’t anything because I didn’t like lying to my friends. “I don’t really know what’s going on, okay? And I’m confused and a little afraid.”

Jonah sat up straight and leaned over his thighs, his face an immediate mask of concern. “Holy shit. You actually mean that.”

“Yeah. It fucking sucks. I thought the worst thing that was going to come out of Vegas was a monster hangover. Instead, I got this adorably hot nerd who isn’t wearing a bow tie but probably should. And he just…just storms into my life and kisses like a dream, and?—”

“Whoa, hold your fucking balls?—”

“ Phone .”

“You kissed?”

Licking my lips, I swore I could still taste Amedeo there. “We had a small, tiny little…thing.” False. It was a big, wet, desperate make-out session in a filthy bathroom.

Jonah grinned. “You like him. You like this guy.”

I covered my face and groaned into my palms. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“He’s coming tonight, right? Like, for sure?”

I was about seventy-eight point six percent sure. But close enough. “Yeah.”

“I’ll sit with him. I’ll explain the game so he can follow it.”

“Yeah. A blind man narrating a sled hockey game to a man who has no idea how hockey works. That’s gonna go over well.”

“I’ll talk you up,” Jonah said, waving me off. “I’ll bring Micah?—”

“Fuck no! I will have security throw you out if you let your brother anywhere near him.” Micah had a reputation for making men fall in love with him, and I was not risking that with Amedeo, no matter how much I adored him.

Jonah sagged back in his chair but didn’t argue. “He wouldn’t seduce him, you know. He’d never do that to you.”

Except half the time, it wasn’t Micah’s fault. He was just too damn pretty. “I need to figure this out before I unleash the hounds on him, okay?”

Jonah nodded. “Yeah, alright.” His serious face melted into another grin. “I’m excited for you though. You don’t like people.”

I didn’t. Not usually. Relationships were hard enough to navigate as a person. But as a disabled person who had an NHL-sized chip on their shoulder and low-key lived as a total nihilist? Not that I was a sociopath, but I rarely let myself care about anyone or anything outside of my little bubble.

“I really don’t see how this could work long term, but I think I’d like to enjoy it while he’s here.”

“And figure out why he’s got total sad Charlie Brown voice,” Jonah pointed out.

Fuck. I thought I was the only one who noticed. “If you show up tonight, be nice to him. I mean it,” I added when Jonah gave a slow grin. “Don’t say anything that’ll make him run.”

“I would never.” He pressed his hand to his heart. “I want you to be happy. I wanna hear wedding bells and pigeons or whatever.”

“You’re so fuckin’ weird.” Goddamn goalies. But I loved him all the same.

He smiled and sat back. “Tonight is gonna be great.”

If only I had some kind of faith, I might have believed him.

* * *

I struggled but managed a weak grip with my gloves in the front of Boden’s jersey. I gave a hard tug, and his sled tipped on the blades toward me. “Do you see him? Tell me you see him?”

My vision wasn’t too bad on the ice. Everything was well lit and high contrast since we shared the rink with the blind hockey team, but everyone in the crowd was a sea of blurry, flesh-colored blobs.

I couldn’t have picked Amedeo out if my life depended on it. And although it didn’t, right then, it felt a bit like it did.

Boden shoved me off, using my shoulder to support himself as he got his blades righted beneath him. “Are you smoking crack? Because I will have you thrown off the team and forcibly put into rehab.”

“I’m being serious!”

He sighed and used his stick to turn his sled toward the wall. There wasn’t a lot of wiggle room in our bench area, but he managed to lean over the wall just far enough to get a good look at the crowd across from us.

“I think so. I—oh.” He turned to me, and behind his visor, I swore I could see a look of horror on his face. “Did you send him here with Jonah?”

“Noooo,” I said slowly. “Jonah might have mentioned he was going to come by tonight and help him understand the game.”

“Brave,” Boden said, his voice a low rumble.

I felt a wave of second-guessing panic wash over me. “Jonah wouldn’t do anything to screw this up.” Right?

Boden sighed around his mouth guard, which he was biting with his molars. “No, he wouldn’t. Did you get a chance to talk to him after lunch?”

My sled was suddenly shoved forward, and I looked over my shoulder to find Ford grinning at me.

“No,” Ford said, “he didn’t. He’s grumpy right now because Amedeo and I had a long, intense, hot…conversation in my car when I dropped him off.”

Boden rolled his eyes and looked back at me. “Why didn’t you call him?”

“Because I was busy,” I defended. And I’d been avoiding any chance that would screw up tonight for me and Amedeo. I had plans. Sort of. At least, I had an idea of what I wanted, and if I let my mouth get ahead of me, there was a damn good chance he’d cancel.

That was how it always went.

“I was putting together my resume for the Legends,” I said. I’d filled the guys in on my possible job offer while we were getting dressed in the locker room, and right in the middle of Boden telling me that it was the best job I could be offered, the new coach walked up.

“I’ll happily write you a letter of recommendation if you need one,” Hugo had said.

Boden had given him a death stare. “You don’t even know him. Maybe try minding your business.” He went off on a long string of French Canadian insults that I vaguely recognized from whenever he was pissed off.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—Hugo was French and very clearly understood most of them. He looked hurt and a little surprised, walking away without another word.

I was fairly sure Boden was being too hard on him, and I was also fairly sure that Jonah was right—we probably needed to give the guy a chance.

But just like the Legends went out of their way to make sure ninety percent of their team staff was on the blind spectrum, we also had rules like that. And Hugo was the first person who had come along as an exception.

“Alright, team!” Hugo called out. He wasn’t in a suit—we were a freaking beer league and barely had matching uniforms, so a suit would have been weird—but he was dressed nicely in a long-sleeve polo and pressed jeans.

Boden muttered something under his breath, and I knocked my elbow into him. “Just breathe and get through the game. We’ll deal with him later.”

The look on his face told me he wasn’t going to make tonight easy, but he said nothing as he spun his body and stared hard at Hugo. The new coach pinked under his attention, but he turned his gaze to the rest of the team.

“Tonight should be an easy win. You’ve been amazing in practice all week, and if we use those new plays, I’m confident we can score early and get enough of a lead that they’ll struggle to overtake us in the third period when we’re at our most exhausted.”

Boden folded his arms over his chest. Now was when he usually had his captain’s speech prepared, and Hugo knew this because he looked at him expectantly. But Boden remained quiet.

After too long, Ford cleared his throat and puffed out his chest like he needed to remind everyone about the A on his breast. “He’s right. I think we need to start hard and heavy with A1.” Hugo had given the new plays names that weren’t in line with what we usually used, but they were easy to remember. “That’s you,” he said, looking at Boden.

His jaw twitched, and he grunted but said nothing.

“Get your head in the game,” I muttered as Ford went on to psych everyone up. “You can be pissed at him later.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This is going to cost us,” Boden hissed.

He was wrong. We’d already proven that in practice. But he had on the face he wore when it was a bad idea to argue with him, so I didn’t.

* * *

Boden was right—I just didn’t realize it until the second period. We started off strong. Ford got the puck and scored within the first three minutes. The Lions were fierce, but we were better.

We weren’t going for anything other than a win. It was the only real relaxing thing about being on this team—it wasn’t going to make or break me. I wasn’t trying to get another invite to the Paralympics the way Boden was.

I wasn’t trying to get my name or face out there. That dream had died in twisted metal and a medically induced coma.

So it was easy to ignore the frantic way Boden was screaming at everyone and slide right up to the wall, where I finally managed to spot Amedeo. This close, I could see Jonah leaning in toward him, murmuring something with a smile.

But it was obvious Amedeo wasn’t listening anymore. I couldn’t hear him through the thick plexiglass, obviously, but I swore his lips said, ‘He’s right here.’

And then he hopped up and pressed his hands to the glass and smiled at me.

My heart skipped half a dozen beats, and I felt my cheeks heat.

“Fucker! Get your ass back in the game!” That was Ford, so I ignored him as I lifted the end of my right stick and tapped it over Amedeo’s palm. I winked for good measure—my blind eye so I didn’t have to lose sight of him for the few seconds I had.

Then I was jostled to the side, tipping to the right, and looked over to see Ford glaring at me. “Dickhead,” Ford said, “Boden’s sabotaging us.”

I blinked. He was what? I spun my sled, and Ford caught me by the arm, hauling me close enough that his bucket bashed into mine. He pointed with the picked end of his stick.

Boden was across the ice, staring at Hugo with fire in his eyes. He was plotting something. We’d agreed to sabotage Hugo, though I was now thinking about recanting my earlier vow because the man was actually a good coach.

Boden said he’d had no experience with hockey, but that much was a lie. He knew plays that were only playable in a sled. He understood the mechanics and how to work us as a team to get us close to the goal every time.

But Boden was refusing to relent.

“He deliberately let Marser get the puck off him,” Ford said.

Shit. I hadn’t been paying attention. I’d been keeping close to the wall so I could find wherever Amedeo had been put. This game might not have been important to me, but it was important to my team, and they were my family.

“What do we do?”

Ford sighed. “This feels like mutiny, but we need to keep him away from the puck. And then we’re having a long goddamn talk later if we?—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence. There was a shout, and then Boden was entangled with someone. It took me a second to catch the number and name on the back of the jersey. Eighteen—Mars. He and Marser were going at it?

They were rivals on the ice, but in real life, they were friends. All of these guys were our friends. They were some of the few people in our tiny little slice of the East Coast who understood us.

We fought on the ice because that was hockey, but right then, Boden was going after him like his life depended on it.

Oh fuck, and now there was blood. Boden spat a mouthful onto the ice as they were separated. Even from where I was, I could see the wild, feral look on his face as the ref pointed toward the sin bin.

“Shit,” Ford breathed.

And then it got worse. The door swung open, and Hugo slid onto the ice. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to hear what he had to say to Boden, so I dug my picks into the ice and started forward, but Ford grabbed me and held me back, shaking his head.

“Don’t.”

It only took a second for me to see why. Boden grabbed his mask and ripped his helmet off, throwing it at Hugo. It missed. But his stick didn’t. He whipped it like it was a goddamn boomerang, and it bounced off Hugo’s shin.

There was no saving him now. I couldn’t read Hugo’s face from this far, but I could see him fold his arms over his chest as Boden was ejected from the game.

“Is this seriously what he wanted?” I asked, leaning toward Ford.

He took a breath and shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”

Hugo’s body was tense, and then he turned, and suddenly, he was skating toward us. Christ on a fucking cracker.

“I didn’t do it,” I said the moment he skidded to a halt.

He frowned at me. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” Ford said quickly. “Ignore him.”

Hugo grunted. “Will I have a problem with either of you?”

Ford pressed his glove over his A and shook his head. “We’ve got this.”

Nodding stiffly, Hugo bent over just slightly toward me. “Enough fraternizing with the guests. Get your ass back in the game.”

Well, shit. It wasn’t like I could argue. Maybe I wasn’t as bad as Boden tonight, but my head wasn’t in the game. It wasn’t deliberate. I was kind of, sort of, thinking with my dick. But I didn’t want Amedeo to see this. Our marriage might not have been technically real, but I wanted him to know that he hadn’t picked a complete loser for a husband.

Boden would probably never forgive me for doing what we needed to do in order to get a win, but for the first time since I’d met him, I knew he was wrong.

And if he hated me for that, so be it.